


Looking up for Heaven

by Qpenguin98



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I love that fact, Literal Sleeping Together, Misunderstandings, Suicide, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, and all the misunderstandings it can carry, but its the starblaster so its fine ;), magnus speaks elvish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 13:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16219895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: "Right. More than ten months left in the cycle and he’s already lost Lup. He has to last ten months without Lup. He knows they’ve never been apart that long. Swallowing down the heavy lump in his throat, he stands."





	Looking up for Heaven

The first time Lup dies it’s horrible. They’re in cycle four, Lup and Taako tromping through the woods with Merle and Magnus to try and find the Light. Magnus had heard something through his rustically hospitable grapevine that something similar to what they’d been asking about had fallen into woods on the west side of the forest, and Lup had dragged Taako out with her and Merle and Magnus. They’re just about a month and a half in, and even Taako has to admit, privately and to himself, that these woods are nice. It’s not too buggy, the air has a cool breeze running through it, and it’s littered with little streams that bleed into larger rivers.

Him and Lup are crossing one of the streams now, Merle and Magnus talking plants a few paces behind them. Taako has exactly no interest in hearing how much Merle _loves_ trees and vines and flowers, so he stays behind Lup.

“Score! Little stepping stones, dude. We don’t gotta get our feet wet this time.”

She hops from one stone to the other effortlessly and Taako considers levitating himself over the stream just to dig at her jumping around on rocks but ultimately decides against it.

“If that’s the thing you’re most excited about on this plane then we have some serious fun searching to do this year.”

“Well obviously that’s not it, bro bro. I’m just glad I don’t have to soak my shoes again.”

The rocks are slipperier than he thought they’d be, and he wobbles a little jumping onto one. “Yeah well you know what they say about soaked shoes.”

“I don’t, actually.” He can hear the smile in her voice as she jumps the next rock. “Tell me how that—”

Lup cuts off with a yelp as her foot slips on the rock she lands on, body falling sideways. Her arm goes out to try and stop the fall, but it slides on the pebbles under the water and her head hits the next rock in the sequence with a sickening sounding crack. She goes still as blood starts to flow into the stream.

Taako freezes. “Lup?” His voice is quiet as he stares at her, spine rigid.

She doesn’t say anything.

Time feels stuck around him and he’s got exactly no idea what the fuck is going on. The murmuring behind him gets louder and then Merle and Magnus are there. Time unsticks itself and he lets out this horrified little yell, staring as Merle comes up next to her, spell already in his hands.

Magnus grabs his shoulders and shakes him gently. Taako forces himself to look at him, tearing his eyes away from his sister. He thinks Magnus is asking if he’s okay, asking what happened. He doesn’t say anything.

This is the first time Lup’s died, and it was by slipping on a fucking rock. His knees kind of give out under him and Magnus sinks down with him, sitting him down onto the rock he was standing on. His hands are still on his shoulders. They feel burning, searing into and under his skin in a bad bad bad way.

“Let me go.”

“What?”

“Let me _go_ ,” he says, louder. There’s an edge to his tone that he’s not sure he’s ever used with the team, let alone with Magnus. He saves it for particularly uncomfortable situations, ones where him and Lup were in serious danger. It surprises both of them, the hostility in his voice.

Magnus lets him go.

Looking at Merle grants him the sight of a very apologetic looking cleric who’s already got his bible put away.

Right. More than ten months left in the cycle and he’s already lost Lup. He has to last ten months without Lup. He knows they’ve never been apart that long. Swallowing down the heavy lump in his throat, he stands. Magnus stands with him, arm outstretched to steady him. He pulls it back when Taako’s ears go flat against his head and his shoulders tense up even more.

Vaguely Taako notes that the only person on the Starblaster he’s let willingly touch him is Lup. He buries that thought deep in his psyche to never come back up again as he gingerly picks her up, resting her over his shoulders.

“Do you need any help?” Magnus sounds unsure of himself and a dark part of Taako takes joy in that.

“Nah, don’t worry your pretty little head about it, Maggie. Chaboy’s got this.”

“I’m sorry, Taako,” Merle says below him. “There wasn’t anything I could do.”

“I’m sure, my dude,” he says, trudging back through the water. Lup’s body is heavy and limp. He can feel the water and the blood soaking into his shirt and he shudders. “Now if you two chucklefucks wanna keep searching for the Light that’s all cool and dandy with me, but I’m going back to the ship.”

He knows they’re talking behind him, can hear his and Lup’s name occasionally, but he doesn’t acknowledge them at all. They follow him back to the ship, staying a comfortable few feet behind him. Magnus doesn’t try to touch him again.

Lup’s body is cold by the time they reach the Starblaster.

“What happened?” Barry comes up to meet them as Taako rests her body against the trunk of a tree.

“Slipped,” is all he says before he magics the hole in the ground. He grabs a few things off of her that she’ll want to keep before sliding her into the ground. There’s not much else to do with the dead body of his twin other than bury it. She’ll be back. He repeats that thought to himself as he puts the dirt back overtop of her.

Barry puts a hand on his shoulder and he spins around, teeth practically bared. “Don’t _fucking_ touch me, Bluejeans.”

Barry lets go with a jolt, surprise written all over his face. Taako turns away from him and stalks his way back to the ship. He can hear them talking and his mouth twists.

Before Davenport or Lucretia can ask him what happened he locks himself in his room, shoving Lup’s things into her space before falling into the bed.

She’ll be back, he thinks as he very much doesn’t wrap himself up in one of her stray sweaters.

She’ll be back, he thinks as he doesn’t bury his face in the pillows to stop himself from crying.

She’ll be back.

Ten months is such a long time, and when another month has passed and nothing feels good anymore, he can’t stand it. He just wants Lup back. He’d like a fucking hug and there’s no way in hell he’s asking anyone aboard this ship for one of those. Touching Taako is a privilege that none of them have earned.

He’s maybe a little lonely too. Cooking without Lup is awful. He keeps dropping spice bottles trying to throw them to her. Magnus catches him clutching his mixing bowl to his chest one night, head dropped low. He’s meant to be cooking dinner, but it’s so much without her. It’s so much. Magnus leaves at his insistent monotone words of leaving the chef to his own devices thank you very much Magnus, now get the fuck out.

They’re out scouting for the Light again and Taako has joined Magnus and Lucretia only for the hopes that something out here will kill him and he’ll finally get to see his sister again. They’re up higher this time, cliff faces littering the area they’re in, and Taako gets an idea.

If he… slips, by chance, on one of those cliff faces, the rest of them will be none the wiser. He walks up on the edge of one, peering over it. It’s a straight drop down, and it’s a long way down.

“Taako, be careful over there,” Magnus calls.

“Yeah yeah, of course. You wouldn’t want to lose your best elf on the ship now would you?”

He follows them for a little longer, a careful distance away so that if and when he slips neither of them are close enough to grab him. The trail they’re taking is winding, right up against a cliff edge, and on a sharp, narrow right, he takes his chance.

He turns halfway, lets his foot slide off the edge, and even though he’s doing it himself the sensation of falling is still jarring. A small yell comes out of his mouth, he can see Magnus running over, and then he’s over the edge.

He comes to on the Starblaster, Lup’s fingers digging into his wrist just like they were four years ago. Year five is starting up, and he’s back on the ship. Which means Lup is back on the ship. He pulls her down into a hug, griping at her tightly.

“Geez, bro bro. Miss me much?”

He holds her tighter and she lets out a little “oh.” He hears small footsteps come up to them and pulls back from the hug, looking down at Davenport.

“The two of you need to be more careful. We lost you both very early last year. I’d like it to not happen again.”

“Both?” Lup asks, looking at Taako. “I know what happened to me but what happened to him? That world seemed really chill.”

“He slipped off a cliff edge,” Magnus says. There’s a weird hesitance that Taako doesn’t like before the word slipped. He narrows his eyes in his direction and Magnus stares right at him.

“Ugh, lame ways to die for both of us. No adventure in it at all.”

“Regardless,” Davenport says. “I’d implore the two of you to use some more caution next time. Most of the year without our resident cooks and arcanists isn’t the most pleasant.”

His voice has a soft undertone to it that makes it sound more like playful scolding than actual scolding, and Taako nods, waving a hand. “Natch, Cap’n’port. We’ll make extra special sure not to die super early in the future. Do I even want to know what you ate for nine months?”

“A lot of raw vegetables and overcooked meat.”

Taako makes a face and Lup makes a disgusted sound. “You need to learn how to cook.”

“And you need to be more careful on missions. Let’s see which one happens first.”

Taako soaks in the Lup contact he gets that day. He doesn’t let her go far for about a week, clinging to her in the least obvious way in front of the others and in a very obvious way in the privacy of their room. She’s warm and real and solid and the too long hugs she gives feel so good.

It’s a while before she dies again.

They’re in year nine, and Lup is out with Barry and Merle, trying to find information from the locals. It’s month number five, and they still haven’t found the Light. It’s entirely possible that they won’t this year. There’s been some whispers of war between factions on this planar system, and Taako had wanted exactly nothing to do with that.

Merle and Barry come back without Lup.

Taako takes one look at their singed hair, empty hands, and openly hurt faces and snaps his mouth shut from where he was ribbing at Magnus. Magnus turns to look at them, and then looks back at Taako. He opens his mouth to say something, but he turns away, walking back into the main part of the ship.

“Lup’s dead,” he says to Davenport in passing. “Merle and Barry are back all burnt up, but no Lup.”

“Taako—”

“It’s fine. Only seven more months, right?”

Davenport grabs his wrist to keep him from walking away and Taako bristles. “I know it’s hard for you when Lup’s gone. You don’t say anything, but we know. If you need anything, just let me know.”

His snide remark dies behind his teeth, because his captain is being incredibly sincere and Taako feels a little raw right now. He nods and Davenport lets him go. Taako doesn’t hole himself up in his room this time, instead cooking too much food for the six people they have left. He doesn’t eat any of it.

This time he lasts a week before going off on his own in the middle of the night and blasting himself with magic missile.

Davenport grabs him by the arm the second he reforms, dragging him off into a side room away from the others. Lup calls after him but he can hear the others remarking on how good it is that she’s back, trying to keep her attention.

“Ease up, Cap’n’port,” he says, pulling his arm back.

“You don’t get to do that,” Davenport says, closing the door behind them. “Taako you can’t do that.”

“Not sure what you’re talking about, my man.” Taako looks anywhere but him, crossing his arms and glancing around the room. “Pretty sure with the whole reset button we’ve got going on I can do whatever and come back good as new.”

“That’s it! You can’t just- just- go into the night and kill yourself and act like that’s something acceptable to do!”

“Look—”

“Magnus said he was fairly certain you slipped off that cliff edge on purpose. And now you’re going off in the middle of the night and blasting yourself with spells so you don’t have to live out the rest of the cycle. Do you think that’s acceptable behavior?”

“Acceptable behavior is kind of debatable in our situation, wouldn’t you say?”

Davenport stops and presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “If Lup did this because you died, would you find it acceptable behavior?”

“No,” he says, looking back at Davenport. “But she wouldn’t.”

“Then why is it fine for you?”

“It’s not,” he says, frustrated. “I’m not saying it is, I’m just—”

“Taako, I told you if you needed anything to come to me and you blatantly disregarded that. I need to know that this isn’t going to happen again.”

“Cap’n’port…”

“If you can’t promise that then I at least need to know why.”

“You already know why.”

“No, I know you feel like you can’t make it less than a year without your sister, but I don’t know why.”

“Because,” he starts and stops. “Fuck, Davenport, why do you think? We were like attached at the fucking hip growing up. I don’t think we ever spent more than a week apart from each other, and a week might be pushing it.”

“Then why aren’t I seeing this with Lup?”

“Because I’m the fucked up twin,” he hisses out, bending down a little to get his face closer. “Because Lup knows how to cope way better than I do and she actually has people skills. I can’t last a fucking month without her, let alone a year. Not to mention she’s just obviously more needed here. I know the importance levels of everyone on this ship, captain.”

“That’s- that’s just untrue—”

“It won’t happen again, Cap’n’port. Can I go now?”

Davenport sighs and nods. Taako slips out of the room and back into Lup’s welcome back parade. She nudges him with her elbow, whisper asks him what that was about.

“ _Just some stupid shit I did last cycle, don’t worry about it_ ,” he answers back in Elvish. He’s not certain if any of the others speak Elvish or not, but he figures if they do they’ll have enough tact not to interject here. Lup’s sure to ask about it later and he’ll skirt around the answer until she drops it.

It’s a good six cycles until she dies before him again. This time it’s his fault. Maybe she won’t see it that way, but it is. The inhabitants of this plane are hostile towards them and want them as far away from the Light as they can get them. They’ve already lost Barry, who got caught in one of their traps and didn’t come back. The nets they used were barbed, they discovered, and on those barbs was poison. Fast acting, painful, and with no known cure yet.

Taako isn’t watching where he’s going, chatting with Lup and Magnus as they go along. He should be, even Barry had been careful when he’d gotten netted up. But they’re in a part of the woods far away from the nearest town, so he figures they’re safe.

He figures wrong.

He steps down on something and it snaps, and the world seems to move in slow motion. Lup’s head snaps towards the ground they’re on and she shoves him backwards with her arm. The net comes up around her, swinging up into the air, and she goes with it, kicking and cursing. Magnus helps him back up and Taako immediately cuts her down with a spell, slowing her decent to the ground. She kicks off the net and he can see the little pricks where the barbs had caught her.

“Oh fuck,” he says quietly and she turns to him and grins.

“Oh come on. You think this is gonna stop me? It only stopped Barold cause he’s a massive nerd, and I’d rather die than get called a massive nerd, Taako.”

She doubles over a second later, breathing heavy and labored. He holds out a hand for her to grab and she takes it, dragging herself off of the net and into the grass, squeezing hard.

“After reassessing the situation,” she grits out, half curling into the grass. “It seems like I might be a massive nerd.”

“ _Fuck Lulu_ ,” he wobbles out in Elvish, and his face feels wet. “ _I’m so fucking sorry._ ”

“ _Hey now, bro bro,_ ” she says. ” _Don’t you blame yourself for these shitty people’s poison._ ”

He lets out a sob as she curls up against him with a noise of pain. Magnus sits down next to them and fiddles with his hands, like he wants to help but doesn’t know how. Taako doesn’t know how either.

“Come on, Taako,” she says, voice slurred with pain. “I’ll be back next cycle and you can laugh at me and Barry for being such big nerds.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” he says wetly and she laughs, this pained wheezy sound that makes the tears fall harder. He holds her close as she whimpers into his chest, and Lup shouldn’t be making that noise but she is and it _hurts_ because it’s his fault.

When she finally goes quiet and still he curls over her and sobs openly. It doesn’t matter that Magnus is right there next to him, he can’t hold it in. The aforementioned human scoots closer and offers his arms out. It’s been fifteen years and Taako still hasn’t willingly let a person other than Lup touch him for any extended amount of time, but Magnus is there and offering and he kind of just falls sideways into his arms that tighten around him pretty much immediately.

It’s bad in a good sort of way so he lets him keep hugging him while he cries over his sister’s dead body. His hands are itching for his wand, to cut down the time he has to be without her but he’s pretty sure Magnus had grabbed it when he’d pulled Lup up next to him. Smart, he thinks, because now he can’t kill himself in the less painful way.

He considers reaching out and pricking his finger on one of the barbs, but Magnus’s arms get tighter around him and one hand comes up and presses against his head and he goes limp, letting himself get held by his teammate for the first time.

They don’t talk about it on the way back to the ship and Magnus gives him his wand back. He’s not sure what to do with Lup’s body. He could bury her, but they’d stopped burying the dead a few cycles ago. Instead, he wraps her up in her red robe and puts her in the nearby river. She’d always thought river burials were cool.

The others watch him closely when he gets back, trying to make sure he won’t do the same thing he did last time. He’d told Davenport he wouldn’t and that should be enough, but it isn’t.

They’ve passed the week mark of Lup being dead and the watchful eyes get a little less prominent. Taako feels like he’s suffocating, but Davenport might make him sit down and explain in excruciating detail why he can’t handle living without her, even if he knows she’ll be back. He doesn’t think he could handle that, so he drowns in his grief and his guilt until it gets too thick to bear.

While it’s been made clear to him many times that Magnus is always up and open for emotion time, Taako’s never taken advantage of it. But he can’t sleep and it kind of feels like he’s dying as he pads his way down the hall in the middle of the night. He wishes he could sneak off into the woods and not come back for a year, but it’s not an option. It’s _not_ , Taako. Magnus’s door is daunting and he gives this small knock, trying to pull himself together enough to look like nothing’s wrong.

Magnus answers the door with sleepy eyes and bedhead, dressed in boxers and a t-shirt. “Taako?”

“Mhm, the one and only.”

“What, um, what are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

Fuck. Fuck, humans need sleep way more than elves. He shouldn’t have woken him up. This was a stupid, stupid idea. Magnus seems to wake up a bit more as Taako berates himself internally. “Oh. Oh! You came here for snuggles and emotions time!”

He smiles a little and Taako thinks he might actually die. Why the fuck it’s called ‘snuggles and emotions time’ he’ll never know, but he’s hit with a wave of first and second hand embarrassment. “Shhhh! If anyone finds out about this I will not hesitate to end you, do you hear me?”

“Of course,” he says as he steps out of the doorway, letting him in. There’s a gentle light coming from the window, moonlight making everything soft. Magnus sits on his bed and pats the spot next to him. Taako sits on it with more than a little caution.

“Can I touch you? I know you’re not big on getting hugs and stuff from anyone but Lup, so this can just be emotions time if you want it to be.”

Taako groans and nods and Magnus wraps an arm around him. It’s big and heavy and feels like the most comfort he’s gotten in a long time. Taako leans against him as Magnus lays back a little, resting up against the wall behind them. His head ends up on the weird squishy part between his shoulder and his chest and he gets comfortable there, eyes half closed.

“I’m gonna talk and you’re not gonna ask me to explain anything okay?”

“Okay,” Magnus says quietly, and Taako nods just for extra confirmation.

“ _It’s my fault_ ,” he says in Elvish, and he can hear Magnus take a breath, presumably to ask what the fuck he’s saying, before going quiet again, remembering what he’d said. “ _If I’d been watching where I was going she wouldn’t have gotten caught up in that net and she’d be here right now._ ”

He closes his eyes and takes a deep, shuddering breath. Magnus’s hand comes up and brushes through his hair with his fingers and Taako’s breath hitches. He squeezes his eyes closed tighter.

“ _It’s my fault she’s dead, I fucking hate it when Lup dies, everything fucking sucks, Maggie. Everything sucks and I can’t even kill myself to make it better because Davenport will throw another shit fit about emotions and worth issues and I can’t do that either. Why’s she have to die so much? Why does she always die before me? I can’t do months without her. I can’t_.”

He hasn’t let himself say any of this out loud and having a person here that can’t understand him as he vents out his ridiculous issues helps in a way he hadn’t known was possible. He doesn’t say much more than that, going quiet. Magnus doesn’t say anything either, and he knows that he eventually falls back asleep. Taako lets himself drift into sleep too.

This continues every couple of nights, Taako knocking on his door late at night when everyone else is asleep and curling up next to him in bed, whispering his problems in Elvish until they both fall asleep. He feels a little more alive, a little more like living when he does this.

“ _Lup was always the better twin_ ,” he says about a month into this weird comfort arrangement. “ _People always liked her better. She’s better at magic than I am. Cooking I’m gonna give to me but magic is hers. She’s so much more important here than I am. I don’t know why it’s her that keeps dying and not me._ ”

Magnus shifts, taking a pause in his natural breathing rhythm.

“ _Cap’n’port always wonders why I’m the one that gets all fucked up when she dies and not the other way around and it’s because she’s better at this, at everything. I’m the fucked up twin, the one who can’t figure out how to separate myself from her. She’s always the better twin and I can’t stand it when she’s dead and fuck Maggie, she’s worth so much more on this stupid forever ship than I ever will be._ ”

Magnus sits them both up then, and Taako almost falls off the bed from being dislodged. “No one thinks that,” Magnus says, and Taako’s whole being freezes. The hands on his shoulders feel scalding, they’re burning. Every point of contact is wrong and painful and he shakes Magnus off of him, standing up.

“You speak Elvish,” he says accusingly, pointing a finger at him.

“ _I do_ ,” he responds, and a shiver goes up his spine.

“You never said _shit_ about you being able to speak Elvish.”

“You told me not to ask questions. I figured you didn’t want me to know what you were saying and that it maybe gave you some comfort? Being able to talk about stuff without anyone interrupting you?”

“You should have fucking told me you spoke what I was speaking,” he spits out. “I-I thought you couldn’t—”

“Taako—”

“Don’t! Don’t act all ‘Oh this was for your own good, Taako.’ You should have fucking told me you spoke Elvish, what the fuck. What the _fuck_. No one was supposed to understand any of that, Magnus!”

“Am I just supposed to let you lay there and think you don’t mean anything to any of us?”

“Yes! You are! Because that’s the pretense you put up. That you couldn’t understand me while I bared my fucking soul to you in the middle of the goddamn night. What the fuck, Mags? What the fuck. Holy shit, my dude, I think that’s literally the worst thing you’ve ever done to me.”

Magnus looks hurt and appropriately ashamed and Taako wants to give him a fucking hug but he won’t. He just took all his trust and ripped it up into tiny little pieces.

The door opens behind them and Taako turns around to find Davenport. “Why are we screaming at two in the morning?”

“Magnus speaks Elvish,” he hisses out.

“Yes?”

“And he didn’t _fucking tell me_ before letting me cry about my fucking feelings to him in Elvish.”

Davenport looks between the two of them before burying his face in his hands and groaning. “Guys…”

“He wanted someone to listen, so I listened!”

“I didn’t want you to understand any of it.” He turns back to Magnus, hands gripping at his hair. “Lup doesn’t even know that shit, why the hell would I want anyone to understand it?”

“Fuck Taako, I… I didn’t mean…”

“Of course not,” he spits back. “You didn’t mean to hurt me. Isn’t that what they all say?”

He doesn’t look for Magnus’s reaction, turning around and stalking outside of the room. Davenport calls after him but he doesn’t stop walking until he’s outside, gripping at the railing, staring down at the grass below him.

He can hear Davenport’s footsteps come up behind him and doesn’t do more to acknowledge him than flick his ear back. A small hand rests on his arm and he shakes it off halfheartedly.

“Taako,” Davenport starts. “You know he didn’t mean anything bad by not telling you.”

“And? Doesn’t change the fact that he should have.” Taako doesn’t like the way his voice wobbles.

“No, it probably doesn’t.”

“I’m not apologizing.”

“I’m not asking you to.” Taako turns and glances at him. Davenport is standing there in his pajamas, fingers pinched around the bridge of his nose. He sighs and scrubs at his eyes before dropping his hand. “I know you know Magnus. We’ve all known each other much longer than anyone anticipated. You know he would never do anything to willingly hurt you.”

“Doesn’t mean jack when it happens, Cap’n’port.” He swings his legs through the bars on the edge and sits, swinging his feet out. “Mr. ‘I Don’t Speak Elvish’ can deal with me being pissed at him.”

Something aches deep inside his chest, something raw that he hasn’t felt in a long time, and he shoves it down, trying his best to do what he always does and lock it all away. Davenport hesitates and then sits next to him.

“You don’t have to stay here with me,” Taako says. “If you wanna go comfort Magnus or go back to sleep I really don’t care.”

“This is fine,” Davenport says. He doesn’t look at him and Taako’s grateful. “I’m awake now.”

They sit there until the sun rises, blue green sky lighting up. Davenport doesn’t say anything when he gets up to leave, just pats him sparingly on the shoulder for a moment. Taako sits there for a while longer before getting up and making breakfast, waffles and eggs and sausages and potatoes.

He ignores Magnus as discreetly to the others as he can but makes it clear to him that that’s what he’s doing. If there’s one thing Magnus hates it’s being ignored. He’s like a massive puppy, vying for attention and affection from all sides.

He notices, Taako can tell, and bitterly he’s glad about it. Good, he should feel alone, he should feel unwanted. He _is_.

He can’t sleep, but it’s fine. It’s not like he needs Magnus to feel better. He can manage just fine by himself. He doesn’t really need sleep, it’s just a luxury he’s awarded himself. He’s run on fumes before and he can do it again.

There’s something unsettling in the way everyone looks at him. He hates it. He loves attention but he hates when it’s like this. All concerned and confused stares directed at him by Lucretia, who’s trying to figure him out for her journals, or Davenport who’d really just like him to get his shit together and be a useful part of this team, he just knows it, or Merle, who really never gives a shit but right now he kind of seems to.

Magnus is the worst. He looks hurt. He looks worried. He looks sorry, and it comes through every time he tries to corner Taako into giving him an apology. He’d stopped after Taako had threatened Magic Missile with the spell on the tip of his tongue.

It’s so much.

It’s too much.

He’d promised Davenport, and that should be enough for him, his promises are his word, and he doesn’t make them often. He needs to be trustworthy, he needs to be useful.

But he needs Lup back more.

The walk into the woods is quiet and uneventful. There’s two and a half months left, so close but so very far, and if he can speed that up it’ll all be fine. There’s none of the residents of this plane that he can see, but it’s fine. He can manage on his own.

He goes deep in the woods, far from where the Starblaster is, where they’ve already looked for the Light, and he find himself a trap. The barbs are sharp and easy to poke himself with, and he curls up under a tree, shivering in pain as it slowly kills him, and he feels empty.

And then he’s on the Starblaster, and Lup’s fingers are digging into his wrist again, and he feels everything all at once and very much.

He wants to say hello to Lup, but the air in his lungs is gone. He wrenches himself out of her grip and stalks down the hall, away from everyone, away from it all. He finds a supply room, sparse and empty, and fits himself inside of it. The wall is cool against his back, hunched over and sitting on the floor.

Davenport finds him, of course. He doesn’t knock, just opens the door. He’s lost his privacy, lost his trust. Gods, he’s and idiot.

“Taako,” Davenport says, and he sounds tired, beat, worn to the bone and Taako shivers. “We talked about this.”

“I’m sorry,” he gasps out, holding his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Taako?” Davenport sounds hesitant, something’s different this time and he doesn’t know what. “Are… What is it?”

“I gave you my word,” he says shakily. “Doesn’t mean shit now. Fucked it up. I’m sorry. I miss her. I missed her. Magnus’s— his fucking _face_ all the time, and yours, and Merle’s and Lucretia’s. Couldn’t stand it. Can’t stand it. I don’t want this, Cap, I don’t want it.”

“Hey,” he says gently, sitting in front of him. Taako lurches forward and pulls him into a hug. He can tell he wasn’t expecting it, his small body tensed up tightly. “Hey,” he says again, quieter now. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s really not, but it’s alright right now.”

“I just want,” he says, not finishing. He hasn’t touched anyone since Magnus majorly fucked him over, and Davenport feels so warm.

“You’re important here, Taako,” Davenport says, and he stiffens. “It’s true. You’re important. We care about you. You’re wanted.”

He shudders, tries not to want this, this attention, this comfort. He doesn’t need this, especially not from these people. But Davenport catches on regardless.

“Is— do you think we don’t mean that? You’re wanted. We want you here, okay? You belong here.

Taako shakes his head but doesn’t say anything. Davenport is warm and solid and there and he’s not shoving him away. There’s nothing he can do about this. He can’t run away because someone’s probably already told Lup what’s been happening, and he’s still feeling whatever angry grudge he’s got on Magnus, and none of this is what he ever wanted to happen but he guesses it’s just his fucking life now.

He pulls back eventually, takes a deep, shuddering breath to steady himself. Davenport stands there patiently, waiting for his next move.

“I’m gonna,” he says, scrubbing a hand over his mouth. “I’m gonna go fuckin’… figure out what to tell Lup.”

“I feel like the truth is warranted, Taako.”

“’Course you do,” he mutters. “Why would you feel anything else?”

“I don’t think this is something you can do alone. I think you need to involve her, especially because all of this is so tightly wrapped around the two of you existing as two. You know her best, Taako. She deserves to know what’s happening.”

“Obvi,” he says tiredly. “Just gotta do it.”

He stands on wobbly legs and rests a hand on the wall to steady himself.

“Are you sure—”

“I got it, cap’n’port. Don’t worry about it.”

He walks out of the supply closet only to be bombarded by Lup immediately, arms wrapping around him unexpectedly fast. He freezes, unsure. He didn’t expect her to be _waiting_.

“Uh.”

“Taako,” she says, and her voice sounds raw, and if she’d been listening he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s going to do. “Talk to me?”

“You been listening?” He asks instead of telling her anything.

She doesn’t answer, which is all the telling he needs, really. She’s probably been sitting outside the whole time, and Davenport just didn’t tell him, or he didn’t know.

He feels Davenport pat him on the hip before slipping away from the two of them, and that traitor really is just not going to tell him his sister’s listening to him have a breakdown outside and then leave him to tell her everything he’s kept bottled up since year four.

So he sits down against the wall of the hallway, Lup sitting down next to him, and he takes a deep breath.

“Shit sucks when you’re gone, Lulu.” He doesn’t try to deny anything, not like he’d get away with it anyway. “It really fucking sucks.”

“You gonna tell me why?” She scrubs at her own face, skin ruddy and damp. “Because, uh, I’m getting the feeling some real not good shit’s been happening, bro bro.”

“It… don’t like, say anything about this, alright? I’m gonna talk and you gotta hear me out.”

“Okay?” Her voice is cautious. She doesn’t want to agree to keeping quiet why he bares his soul for her, but she will.

“You’re the better twin,” he says, and he hears her suck in a breath to tell him off and keeps barreling on. “I don’t— it’s true and everyone on the ship has to fucking know it. You’re right at the front of figuring out how to Light works with Barry and you care about the planes more than I think I ever could. And I feel it more when you’re dead. Like, I’m not needed, or that the rest of the time is just a countdown until you come back. Maybe not for everyone else, but definitely for me. I hate it. I hate it when you’re gone. It sucks major ass, and with how the ship works it’s… it’s easier to just speed thing up a little bit?”

She stares at him, unblinking. He squirms under her gaze, skin prickling. “You… Taako. What—? You’ve been, you’ve…”

“Mhm,” he says stiffly, because this is the worst conversation he’s ever had in his life.

“You can’t do that,” Lup says in a rush of air. “You can’t _kill yourself_ every time I accidentally beef it. That’s— that shouldn’t even be a fucking _option_ —”

“Eh,” Taako says, and she breathes out s frustrated breath. “I know that. I know it shouldn’t be an option, but everything’s so overwhelming when you’re gone, Lulu. Kinda fucking hate it.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“I _know_. Believe me, I’ve heard it. I know it. Doesn’t make me stop wanting it. Or doing it, I guess.”

“What if we end up stuck on one of these planes?” She says, voice shaking. “You’d get stuck dead and we wouldn’t be able to do a thing.”

“You’d be dead too, so what’s even the point?”

“You don’t mean that,” she says.

“Partly,” he says truthfully. “Not all the way. There’s some perks, but you’re a big part fo staying alive for this planar excursion.”

“Fuck, Taako.” Lup leans her head on his shoulder and he wraps an arm around her. They don’t say anything for a while, sitting in vaguely uncomfortable silence in the hall. The conversation is done. He knows it’s wrong, she knows he knows it’s wrong, and they can deal with specifics of stopping it later.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” he says, smoothing his hands down his pants. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Oh, that wasn’t it,” her voice is thin and strung out. “You killing yourself every time I die wasn’t the thing. Great.”

“It’s related,” he says, not looking at her. “It’s about Magnus.”

And he tells her about Magnus and baring his soul to him in the dead of night in elvish when he thought he couldn’t understand, the gut wrenching feeling when he answered something that should never have been understood in the first place, the guilt and the hurt and the anger that’s all still sitting there, and how tired he is of Magnus giving him fucking sad puppy eyes every time he sees him.

“He was wrong,” Lup agrees, “but I think you’re putting a bit too much power in the situation than in your hands.”

“Bull shit,” he says, scowling. “I can ignore him for the rest of forever if I want to.”

“But you don’t want to. That’s why you’re telling me. Because you want to talk to him again and maybe get back in on whatever weird snuggle sleep arrangement y’all had before. It’s fine to want that, Taako.”

“I don’t fucking want it,” he mutters. “I want him to feel bad about it.”

“I’m pretty sure he does. You going off and killing yourself afterwards probably didn’t help him feel any better.”

That makes him pause. He hadn’t thought of that. How they’d fought, he’d held his grudge, and then gotten tired of the wounded looks and gone of deep in the woods to die. Without telling him. Magnus is probably blaming himself, or at least partly blaming himself.

“Shit,” Taako says quietly.

“Oh, you forgot you offing yourself every time actually hurts people? Whoops,” Lup says in a flat voice. “Guess you gotta deal with that.”

“Gods, I really don’t wanna deal with that.”

“Too bad!” Her voice is uncomfortably cheery and he mopes at it. “You gotta do that soon too. Because I will lock you two in a room together if you don’t.”

“You’re awful.”

“Nah, just pushy,” she says, and she wraps her arm around his waist. “You can’t do that anymore, bro bro.”

“I know,” he says quietly. “I know.”

He goes to find Magnus after a while, late into the night. It’s quiet, everyone on the ship in bed. He knocks on Magnus’s door gently, not exactly wanting to wake him. It opens fairly quickly, Magnus standing confused on the other side.

“Uh,” he says, looking at him. “Hi?”

“You gonna let me in?” Taako asks, arms crossed. “Or do I gotta do this out here?”

Magnus opens the door for him more, looking even more confused than he was.

“Alright,” he says after the door shuts. “What you did really fucked with me. Like, a lot. I think that’s the worst thing anyone on the ship’s done to me as of now.” He winces and Magnus seems to shrink on himself. “But also you didn’t mean anything bad by it, I guess, and I want you to know I didn’t kill myself because of you.”

Magnus pauses and looks at him. “You didn’t,” he says carefully. “But you went and killed yourself because… what? Lup? Davenport?”

“Everyone, really. The looks, I couldn’t handle them. Not like they’re any better now, just worse then. It wasn’t you Maggie. I was upset about it, I am upset about it a little bit still, but I know you’re probs blaming yourself and I’m telling you you shouldn’t.”

“Huh,” Magnus says. “I really didn’t think this was how this was gonna go. Honestly I thought you would hate me forever and I’d just have to deal with it and feel sad about it.”

“I wanted to,” he says quietly. “I know we’re being kind of jokey, but it really fucked with me, Mags. This is as open as I’m gonna get about this, but honestly? Bad. Felt bad. You just… I set up the pretense of you not knowing elvish and you played right along like all you knew was common and the you just… you listened to me talk on and on about things Lup still doesn’t know the full extent of for _weeks_ , and then you drop out of nowhere that you know elvish by telling me not to hate myself? It was not the way to do that. And I want to hate you, I really really do. But I hurt you too, maybe, I guess, so we’re probably even.”

“Kind of a shitty tally,” Magnus says, as quiet as he ever gets. “And I am sorry. I’ve said it a lot, but I really thought it was the best way to do it. It wasn’t, which kinda fucked everyone over, but if… are you okay?”

Taako blinks and then snorts a little laugh. “Yeah, Mags, I’m fucking peachy keen. Nah. Chaboy's not good and probably won’t be good for a while, but it’s not because of you.”

“Alright,” Magnus says, defeated. “I guess that’s… it’s better.”

“You’re damn right it is,” Taako says, and he shivers. He’s cold, he’s tired. Lup is sleeping on her own just fine tonight, and Taako wants something. He wants closeness. “Um, I get it if you don’t wanna like, continue that. But, uh, if you were down I guess I’d be down.”

“You wanna sleep next to me after I did that to you?”

“Don’t see me sleeping next to anyone else, so you?”

“Lup?”

“She’s already out,” Taako says, self conscious and squirmy. “I can leave, if it’s not a thing.”

“It can be a thing!” He sounds excited, and then he flings the covers back and crawls in, offering an arm. “It can definitely be a thing.”

Taako sighs and slips in next to him, feeling the familiar warmth and bulk of his body. It’s comforting. As badly as he wants to keep the grudge, and fun as it might be to sting Magnus out more, he does care about him, and he does hate seeing him hurt. He’s ready to not feel like shit every time he looks at him.

“You alright?” Magnus asks him, curling his arm over top him. He hums and scoots in closer.

“Yeah, ‘m alright Maggie.” Whatever. He can deal with his emotions whenever he gets fucked over next.

Sleep sounds much better than dealing with that.

**Author's Note:**

> lmao, heres a balance fic finally  
> this things been in my drafts since march/april. the first 4k words actually got made before my barry fic, so what i usually use as my pre canon canon is a little warped bc of it.  
> this whole thing started bc i love hurtful misunderstandings and magnus speaks elvish, so of course those two can go together  
> dunno how im feeling about this one lads, especially the ending, but its all good.


End file.
